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When Bette Midler, generally considered
the best actress of her generation, was the same age as Meryl Streep - 47 - she
was "washed up", as they used to say. She had made All About Eve"five
years earlier and was only a half-dozen years shy of What Ever Happenend to
Baby Jane? Streep, considered by many to be this
generationīs best actress, still is playing love interests and sexually charged
women such a Lee, the would-be cosmetician of Marvinīs Room. "I really understand Lee," says Streep,
looking younger than the middle-age character who must deal with her estranged
cancer-stricken sister and her hostile son. "Trying to control her son and
making just about every wrong move there is. So filled with outward
determination and hope, and inside being so self-loathing and visiting that on
her kid," Streep says. "The last thing you want is the worst part of you to be
continued in your children. And thatīs exactly what she does. She turns him into
someone who hates himself." Marvinīs Room, which is being
released nationally after early engagements in several major cities, is the kind
of raw, emotional film - such a Sophieīs Choice and Kramer vs
Kramer - that made her a star. Written by Scott McPherson, who had
AIDS when he wrote the script and has since died, MarvinīsRoom
resonates with issues of mortality, family ties, prioritizing life goals and
reconciling with roots. "The movie is hitting a chord. Maybe itīs all the aging
boomers reconciling," Streep says. "Maybe itīs the mortality of our parents and
coming to that age where you just have to either forgive or trash it out in some
way with your family." Streep doesnīt look much different than
she did in 1978 in her breakthrough role as Linda, the working-class, small-town
girl in The Deer Hunter. Her skin is pale and soft and unlined. The Lee
of Marvinīs Room looks haggard and life-battered, as if Streep willed
herself to look older. Lee resonates strongly among the roles
she has brought to life, Streep says. "I love them," she says of the many women
whose spirits have inhabited her. And which of them maintain a special place in
her heart? "I really love Helen, the character of Ironweed, says
Streep, her face softening. "Sophie lives in my body. And Francesca in
Bridges of Madison Country. And Postcards (from the Edge). And
Heartburn - I loved playing that. But immediately I think of Helen in
Ironweed". Streep, known to pick her roles
carefully, responds to the visceral reaction she feels when reading a script.
"Itīs a feeling of my hert, really, literally racing. That is something that I
understand. This situation that this person I am reading is in, and now Iīm in
it. And it is nothing that I have purposely tried to do, but now Iīm in it." -
"And then I call my agent and say, 'Yes, Iīll do it'," Streep laughs. In her next role, for ABCīs ...
First Do No Harm on Feb. 16, she plays a mother battling the medical
establishment over the treatment of her epileptic child. A quote from Dustin Hoffman - that
acting with Meryl Streep is like being in the ring "and she delivers punch for
punch" - is read aloud to Streep. She laughs. "He always talks in pugilistic
terms about working with me. Like heīs girding himself for battle with the
Gorgon or something." Streep, who won a supporting actress Oscar playing
opposite Hoffman in Kramer vs Kramer, calls the actor "relentless -
though I might add, some really wonderful people are relentless in the pursuit
of what they want." And what about Robert De Niro, her most
frequent co-star (Deer Hunter, Falling in Love and Marvinīs
Room)? "Oh...," she moans, wondering how to
respond. "Iīve known him for 20 years, and my feelings about him as an actor are
mixed up with my feelings about him as a friend. Heīs the most loyal person in
the world. His talent is just gorgeous. And every time I work with him, I learn
something. Even in my old age, just this last time, I learned working with
him." Special moments of actor-to-actor
chemistry she has experienced? "Oh! Thatīs a lot of people," Streep
says immediately. "Thatīs Diane (Keaton, who plays Streepīs sister, Bessie, in
Marvinīs Room) ... She is physically incapable of actorishness or
falsity or any kind of punching up the line for the laughs. Sheīs just real.
Because sheīs really on a very high order of artist." Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays her
tough-sensitive son in Marvinīs Room, impressed her. "Leonardoīs the
real thing. A fabulous little genius," she says. Contemporaries of Streep such as
Hoffman, De Niro, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackamn have commented on an
attitudinal shift among younger actors, who will come up to them asking how to
'make it'. Has Streep noticed a generational difference? "Oh, yes," she says and nods. "And I
donīt think itīs just b**** either. Glen (Close) and I have talked about this. I
think it has to do with coming up in the theater. The ethos of 'the playīs the
thing' ... weīre all in this together. Not 'maybe I can get a series out of this
if Iīm reviewed well on Broadway'. Thatīs not the way we thought. Young actors
think a career is something that means business. We thought of a career as life
work, and you look at the body of work." * |